Part of the Global Plot to Expose Moonbats, conspiracy nuts, and anti-Semites, especially the Jewish anti-Semitic variety.
The leftwing Neo-Nazi web magazine Counterpunch has described Plaut thus: "One of the most pernicious writers is Steven Plaut, a man who could be thought of as Israel's Daniel Pipes."

Sunday, September 28, 2008

About that Attack on Prof. Sternhell

Subject: About that Attack on Prof. Sternhell

About that Attack on Prof. SternhellBy Steven Plaut

The smoke from the pipe bomb had not yet cleared from the courtyard infront of the home of Prof. Zeev Sternhell in Jerusalem when the medialaunched their most ferocious McCarthyist broadside against the Israeli"Right" since the mid-1990s. The media leapt to the kneejerkconclusion that the attack on Sternhell, lightly wounded by the bomb,was politically motivated, this because Sternhell had a long trackrecord of expressing radical opinions. These included his denouncingYESHA settlers and all non-leftists in Israel as "fascists," justifyingterror attacks on "settlers," and calling for Soviet-style centralplanning of the Israeli economy and society.

The previous round of massive anti-dissident McCarthyism in Israelfollowed the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. The leftist mediainvented the "theory" that Rabin had been killed as a direct resultof the anti-Oslo "Right" exercising its freedom of speech and voicingits ideas. The McCarthyist Left in Israel insisted then that anyonewho had disagreed with Rabin's Oslo initiative was collectivelyguilty of his murder. The Leftist theory of jurisprudence insistedthat every Israeli non-leftist was collectively guilty of murderunless he or she could be proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.The episode demonstrated how shallow is the understanding of andcommitment to democracy in large swaths of the Israeli politicalarena.

And a few days ago came the pipe bomb attack on Sternhell. Onceagain, every Israeli non-leftist is being pronounced by the media asguilty of "terrorism" against Sternhell unless proven innocent beyonda reasonable doubt, and never mind that there is no proof that thebomb was placed by anyone from the Israeli "Right" or even by anyoneacting out of political motives. The media in Israel have no need ofevidence or proof of anything. Article after article denounced the"Right" as being (collectively) behind the attack, and numerouspieces, including notably those by A.B. Yehoshua and by police czarAvi Dichter, insisted that nameless "settlers" were behind the attackon Sternhell. Lunatic far leftist professors, ordinarily ignored bymost of the Israeli media outside of anti-Zionist Haaretz, the verypeople who have never heard of an Arab atrocity against Jews they wishto condemn, were carted out by the boxcar to issue proclamations abouthow the attack on Sternhell was simply a side consequence of Israelibrutality against poor Palestinians and how the attack proves thatanyone who disagrees with the Far Left is by definition a terrorist.

Now a reasonable person would not rule out automatically thepossibility that a lunatic from the fringe of the "Right" or even a"settler" might eventually be found to be involved in the attack.Incidentally, not a single news story or commentary in Haaretz or therest of the Israeli media referred to the perpetrator(s) of the attackon Sternhell as "activists." But imagine, just suppose, that thisturns out not to be the case. Would it not be amusing if the policewere to uncover evidence that in fact Palestinian terrorists hadtargeted Sternhell with a bomb, after his receipt of the "Israel Prize"turned him ironically into a symbol of the Zionist entity and a trophytarget? Moreover, Sternhell had over the years accumulated his fairshare of others who hated him, including numerous French anti-Semites,one of whom successfully sued Sternhell for libel in France. So aprudent person would withhold pronouncements concerning who should bepresumed to have carried out the attack until some real evidenceactually is uncovered.

Meanwhile anyone who has ever dissented from the dogmas of the far Leftand anyone who even expressed criticism of the views of Sternhell,including his statements calling for murder of "settlers," spent theweek fielding media injunctions that he step forward to denounce theattack. As if anyone from the non-Left who fails to take theinitiative to issue such a declaration should be presumed to supportthe attack! A prominent professor from the "Professors for a StrongIsrael" got such a summons from an Israeli television station andrefused to cooperate, viewing the summons as insulting.Isracampus.org.il, the web watchdog that exposes and monitors academicanti-Israel extremism in Israel, was similarly swamped with accusatoryinjunctions to appear and demands to renounce the attack.

Let me repeat here what I proposed to the members and leaders of"Professors for a Strong Israel" and hereby suggest to anyone elsefrom the non-Left contemplating what the proper response to all thisshould be. My suggestion is to adapt the familiar aphorisms ofDavid Ben Gurion to the challenge. Ben Gurion regularly madestatements such as, "We will fight the White Paper as if there wereno Hitler and we will fight Hitler as if there were no White Paper."

Accordingly, my suggestion is that all sensible non-Leftists, whenasked about the attack on Sternhell, should reply as follows: Webelieve that political street violence in Israel must be fought as ifthere were no plague of leftist academic treason, and that the plagueof leftist academic treason must be fought as if there were nopolitical street violence in Israel.

Beyond that, several other rather tame observations might bementioned. These include:

- Sternhell's political outlook and opinions were repugnant before theattack and did not become any less repugnant because of the attack.

- Radical Leftist sedition does not become legitimized because of theattack on Sternhell, no matter who carried it out.

- Critics of the radical Left do not become delegitimized because ofthe attack on Sternhell, no matter who carried it out.

- Critics of Prof. Sternhell's opinions have as much right to expresstheir criticisms as Sternhell himself has to express his.

As a side note, should it actually turn out that a lunatic from thefringes of the Kahanist movement was involved, I strongly suggest thatthe denial of freedom of speech to Kahanists should be considered tobe the primary cause of the attack. The Kahanists and ONLY theKahanists have been criminalized in Israel, banned, denied freedom ofspeech, and declared racists and terrorists. Yet not a singlefar-Leftist "Post Zionist" nor a single Arab fascist or Stalinistgroup has been similarly criminalized and none were officiallydeclared "racists," even when calling for mass murder of Jews ordenying the Holocaust.

Forcing fanatics to compete in the marketplace of ideas exposes theirideas to sunshine and fresh air and ultimately neutralizes them. Butthe anti-democratic Left and the Israeli political establishmentdecided arbitrarily to criminalize the Kahanists, banning them asillegal, and people denied freedom of speech sometimes resort toviolence. Should it turn out that any were involved, and there isnot a shred of evidence that any were, the policy conclusion fromsuch a discovery should be that Kahanism needs to be decriminalizedand Kahanists permitted to exercise freedom of speech.